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Questions for Hasbro at SDCC - Marvel, TF, GI Joe

Even though Hasbro is stretched thinner in staff this year, they have granted us a few minutes dedicated interview time with each of their major brands during Comic-Con. I know there have been some TF and GI Joe questions being batted around the forums already, so this thread is to help us gather them into a single place. We don't have a lot of time, Comic-Con starts Wednesday and our interviews start Thursday, so the sooner you get these questions in, the more likely we are to use them.

Please keep in mind that these are in-person questions, but make sure they're appropriate - if you can't imagine saying something in front of your grandmother, then probably it needs to be toned down or edited in some way.

Also, make sure to give us any fundamental background to your question, if it's something that a casual fan of the brand might not know, then make sure to clarify as best you can to help out whomever is doing the interview ask the question you want asked get answered properly.

Don't worry about length of question, but keep in mind that these are short interviews so we won't be able to use all questions.

We already have a SW thread like this, so for SW post there. For Marvel, GI Joe, and Transformers, post below (and mark which brand you're asking about if it's not entirely clear).

Thanks!

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

In light of the info that came out of JoeCon (that, ha ha, even the Joe team can't get the Dollar General Joes since there are no DG's around them), I'm going to take a bit of a different focus:

Although obviously the decision to delay GIJoe: Retaliation would've been out of your hands, it puts the toy line in a pretty precarious position, since there will be absolutely no Joe product available for the holiday season (since most of the Retaliation line seems to be selling pretty decently, and most stores will likely clearance out what's lingering by the end of September). Joe collectors are rather concerned; if Retaliation (the movie and the tie-in toy line) underperforms the way Rise of Cobra did, it really could spell doom for the toys for a while.

That said, there have been an awful lot of Pursuit of Cobra and 30th Anniversary figures over the past two years that were impossible to find, as well as a few (like Kwinn and the Data Viper) who were highly anticipated but not released. Plus, the "budget" line that currently appears to be exclusive to Dollar General actually seems to some be the most popular new Joe releases in a while. Why did you not opt to re-produce the hard-to-find figures and those that were canceled just prior to release to fill in the gap in this critical toy merchandising season, or even make the Dollar General figures available at mass retail? Obviously, it would take time to design a new card, but, with these figures, even a straight re-release on the previous cards would've kept Joe on the pegs at Christmas and would have made a lot of people very happy. (Who knows--without unpopular figures like Arctic Destro in the mix, they could actually outperform holiday season sales of Joes from the past few years?)

(I know it's wordy; I've tried to trim it, but I also know they have a way of answering with non-answers if you leave them a way to do so. Let me know if you need any more background than what I stuck in the question.

And, for the record, in case you keep that part of the question and it causes someone offense, I really like the Arctic Destro. I just didn't like seeing nothing but 30 of him in every store for over a year.)

JT, I'm really currious about the Marvel Super Hero Squad line. As of ComicCon last year, it seemed like they'd officially pulled the plug. Then out of nowhere, I starded finding Spider-Man 3 packs at Target and Toys R Us and a few Avengers sets on eBay and Amazon. While limited, both lines did include newly sculpted figures apparently specifically aimed at the new films. So what's going on? Is the line back, is this a test to gage interest, or is this a one-off to tie in to the new movies?

If there's any possibility of the line continuing there are quite a few HTF sets that are fetching huge money in the secondary market and they would offer a great place to start in helping to relaunch the line.

In light of the info that came out of JoeCon (that, ha ha, even the Joe team can't get the Dollar General Joes since there are no DG's around them), I'm going to take a bit of a different focus:

Although obviously the decision to delay GIJoe: Retaliation would've been out of your hands, it puts the toy line in a pretty precarious position, since there will be absolutely no Joe product available for the holiday season (since most of the Retaliation line seems to be selling pretty decently, and most stores will likely clearance out what's lingering by the end of September). Joe collectors are rather concerned; if Retaliation (the movie and the tie-in toy line) underperforms the way Rise of Cobra did, it really could spell doom for the toys for a while.

That said, there have been an awful lot of Pursuit of Cobra and 30th Anniversary figures over the past two years that were impossible to find, as well as a few (like Kwinn and the Data Viper) who were highly anticipated but not released. Plus, the "budget" line that currently appears to be exclusive to Dollar General actually seems to some be the most popular new Joe releases in a while. Why did you not opt to re-produce the hard-to-find figures and those that were canceled just prior to release to fill in the gap in this critical toy merchandising season, or even make the Dollar General figures available at mass retail? Obviously, it would take time to design a new card, but, with these figures, even a straight re-release on the previous cards would've kept Joe on the pegs at Christmas and would have made a lot of people very happy. (Who knows--without unpopular figures like Arctic Destro in the mix, they could actually outperform holiday season sales of Joes from the past few years?)

(I know it's wordy; I've tried to trim it, but I also know they have a way of answering with non-answers if you leave them a way to do so. Let me know if you need any more background than what I stuck in the question.

And, for the record, in case you keep that part of the question and it causes someone offense, I really like the Arctic Destro. I just didn't like seeing nothing but 30 of him in every store for over a year.)

I'll do my best. We may be out of luck on the GI Joe questions, the interview slot they gave us is during an important Star Wars panel, but we're going to see if we can get something worked out. If so, I'd ask this and your other question in the other thread about Renegades. Could use a few more Joe questions just in case we can, really.

Originally Posted by DarkJedi5

JT, I'm really currious about the Marvel Super Hero Squad line. As of ComicCon last year, it seemed like they'd officially pulled the plug. Then out of nowhere, I starded finding Spider-Man 3 packs at Target and Toys R Us and a few Avengers sets on eBay and Amazon. While limited, both lines did include newly sculpted figures apparently specifically aimed at the new films. So what's going on? Is the line back, is this a test to gage interest, or is this a one-off to tie in to the new movies?

If there's any possibility of the line continuing there are quite a few HTF sets that are fetching huge money in the secondary market and they would offer a great place to start in helping to relaunch the line.

Interesting. That's our first and only marvel question. I'm adding a second about the removal of articulation, even for figures that had it in previous lines like IM. For your question, could you cite some examples of those HTF sets you were referring to?

MOAR KWESTIONS PLEEZ! (I hate myself a little for typing that )

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

Here's a question, but it involves my personal discussion with one of the team a few years ago:

"A few years ago, I asked about a potential figure for Billy (Cobra Commander's son and Storm Shadow's student), who seems very logical for an SDCC figure (having appeared only in the comic and having two very distinct potential variants), and was told that you recognized his popularity and wanted to work him into the line somehow. Obviously, this hasn't happened. Are you still as interested in making the figure as every Joe collector would be in buying him?"

For your question, could you cite some examples of those HTF sets you were referring to?

Off the top of my head some sets would include the Beast/Iceman set from 2007, and then a few sets from the end of the run: Thor/Hercules, Iron Man/Tiger Shark, and Captain America/Dark Surfer. There are also a few sets that either only saw release overseas or saw a very limited release like the Winter Soldier, Secret Invasion, X-Force, either of two Secret Wars 4-packs and the impossible to get Spider-Man/Kraven set from 2007. The Spider-Man figure from that Kraven set (a mere repaint of Spidey in his black costume from the third movie) alone commands an asking price around $1,600 on eBay.

If you need more questions for the Marvel team you could ask them about how they decide to balance repaints and rescultps of iconic or "popular" characters against including debut sculpts of more obscure or "cult" characters. I myself am a huge fan of the Alpha Flight series and buy all things Alpha. Unfortunately, the comic (and it's subsequent reboots) have never been terribly successful and so only occaisionally does a new AF figure pop up. But in a more general sense, I do find it frustrating that my collection includes 37 versions of Spider-Man while other characters from the X-Men (Banshee or Jubilee) or Avengers (Quicksilver or Luke Cage) series have yet to be done at all.